Jonny Greenwood’s Suite from 'Noruwei no Mori' ('Norwegian Wood') received its German premiere on 25 June from Marko Letonja and the Bremer Philharmoniker at Die Glocke. The Suite is taken from Greenwood’s music for the 2010 adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s cult novel, directed by Tran Anh Hung.
Letonja previously conducted the Suite in 2021 with the Orchestre Philarmonique de Strasbourg. It premiered at the 2011 Proms with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart; it has also been performed by the Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira and West Australian Symphony Orchestra.
The 10-minute Suite has four movements. Greenwood’s orchestration makes extensive use of microtonal clusters and slow, massed glissandi, reflecting the powerful influence of Krzysztof Penderecki on Greenwood’s compositions, to whom he paid homage in another work from 2011 - 48 Responses to Polymorphia.
An arresting audiovisual effect occurs in the second movement. A slow sweep of the conductor’s baton from right to left brings in the strings, with individual players entering when the gesture reaches them to produce an audible “Mexican wave”. Greenwood used the same device in his 2019 violin concerto Horror vacui, written for Daniel Pioro and the combined 68 strings of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Proms Youth Ensemble, which premiered at the Proms.
A recording of Greenwood’s score was released through Nonesuch in 2011. It is one of several acclaimed soundtracks by the composer and multi-instrumentalist that have made an impact in the concert hall. His music for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-winning There Will be Blood has been reworked into Suites for string quartet (arr. 2018) and string orchestra (arr. 2012). The latter features an optional part for the ondes Martenot that is such a distinctive feature of the score. The version for string orchestra been recorded by André de Ridder and the Copenhagen Philharmonic in 2014 and by Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra live in concert in 2019; in May 2023 it toured with Clark Rundell and the Netherlands Philharmonic, including a performance at the Concertgebouw.
Greenwood himself has played the ondes Martenot in live renditions of the complete film score with orchestra, which has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and London Contemporary Orchestra.